Personal and political lives are correlated; it's natural for people to look to the former to make predictions about the latter. It's even more natural for people to completely ignore the latter and focus on the more interesting former, and for politicians to cynically exploit this tendency.

Pointing out that he, like his comrades Bush and Cheney, work for the top 0.1 percent of America and hate our core America values of Truth, Justice, and the Middle Class way of life is ... not just fair, but urgent.

Unless you like being part of the more than 99 percent of America that has been losing ground under the Bush/McCain regime for the past eight years that will continue in their third term.

Will pretty much said it all. It isn't that McCain is rich, thanks to his trophy wife, but he, and Bush/Cheney, are out of touch regarding the economy and the rest of America. If you have money to invest in oil and commodities you might think the economy is going great.

But like most of us, when you live paycheck to paycheck, and don't have money left over for savings, let alone investing, you realize how bad things are.

Even if you don't drive, like me, you feel it when you go to the grocery store and cab only by half as many groceries as you did last year.

The con, of course, is that most regular Americans imagine that they could one day become rich with the right breaks. So they still frequently identify with the regular-guyness of people who live many social strata above them, perhaps contemplating the day when they'll be invited into the Club. When McCain set the bar for "rich" at 5 million a year, he was not alone in defining the middle class as stretching from households living on $30,000 all the way up to those earning seven figures. His campaign's claims that Obama plans to raise "your" taxes obviously trades on this widespread blind spot to the realities of class, since Obama has been quite clear that the only taxpayers that would be affected by not extending Bush's unprecedented wartime tax cuts would be those earning over $250,000 a year (technically nobody's taxes would be raised, but the wealthiest would see their tax breaks expire instead of being extended.)

Americans will vote for tax breaks for the richest 1% because they think they're going to win the lottery.

What really hurts McCain with this house issue is not that he supposedly did not know how many houses there are, but that he was actually trying to evade answering, because it is a politically hot question. His attempt to drop the subject and "have his staff get back to that" was politic. He hoped the matter would have gone away. If he had just said something like "There are several, but they actually belong to my wife." He would have weathered this with much less controversy. When people know you are rich you might as well admit it.

To me, the issue isn't how many houses McCain owns, it's the fact that he doesn't know how many houses he owns. The fact of owning multiple homes doesn't necessarily mean that he would be incapable of understanding the economic concerns of the average American. The fact that he doesn't even care enough about the status of his own wealth to keep track of how many homes he owns makes me think that putting him in charge of the economic policy for the entire country would be a complete disaster.

Ask someone how many vinyl records they own, or hell, ask someone how many ballpoint pens they own... it would be forgivable if they did not know the answer. Those items are small, easily laid aside, and well, are fucking cheaper than real estate.

It is not about Dwight Guy owning houses, it's that HE DID NOT KNOW HOW MANY!!!!

People should, rich or poor, know how many houses they own. unlike ballpoint pens, no person, especially the US Prez, should not know how many houses they own. To not know, makes a person aloof. it's A HOUSE!!! It's The American Dream !!! If they have to call their business manager or accountant to get the answer... well, why should the people give him The White House?

Jesus H. Christ. You need to read an essay and write an essay to decide that the GOP should be attacked for its policies, which are basically to scam the rest of us for wealth and greed and profiteering, and how their personal lives are immoral and greedy and are tied up with their policies of screwing the rest of America?

Please just get on with it. Stop the intellectualizing and preening and debating whether to go after them. And unless you tie those seven houses to showing you you're going to actually help Bubba in Younstown OH it's not enough btw.

I think this argument is silly. McCain married a very rich woman--and yes they have a lot of houses. Probably buying and selling homes wasn't what he spent his time thinking about. He is a Senator and Presidential Candidate--don't you think he has many more important things to focus on.

I think Paul's comment is excellent. It always astounded me why working-class people would vote Republican. I think of it as a sort of serfdom.

Also,I wouldn't consider $250k+ "top earner" anymore, considering how real wages have been dropping across the board, and the US dollar has lost 30%.

It's the electorate stupid. Stop blaming the rich and corrupt for getting into office when it's the poor and dumb who keep voting them in.

I agree with #11. Unfortunately, too many stupid poor people vote Republican because of "family values." Like putting food on the table and an intact Constitution aren't family values.

The thinking goes; if he found a way to own so many homes that he doesn't even know how many, then surely he can make us all rich. I would think with so many Americans losing the value of their homes or going into foreclosure they would connect McCain and Bush to failed policies. But, as seen so many times before, they get distracted by Republican magicians, and vote against their own interests.

I think this argument is silly. McCain married a very rich woman--and yes they have a lot of houses. Probably buying and selling homes wasn't what he spent his time thinking about.

Well, Leslie Bloss (R), candidate for state representative in the 36th district, I imagine you do wish people would stop pointing out that McCain is too rich to remember how much property he owns. And it might surprise you to realize that on a certain level, there are liberals like me agree who with you -- the fact is all our presidential candidates are wealthy relative to most Americans and that alone does not disqualify them for consideration as candidates. If McCain had married into the wealthiest classes but supported policies that didn't give the appearance of open antagonism towards the working class, I might support him too. After all, FDR was rich and yet was arguably did more for the plight of the working class than any president in modern history.

The fact is that McCain's personal wealth operates as an effective shorthand for his wholesale endorsement of the same GOP trickle-down supply-side voodoo economics that for three decades have been steadily eroding the American standard of living for all but the wealthiest. His economic positions clearly operate in the interest of the class he and his donor base belong to at the expense of everybody else. All the "housing" angle does is provide a character-based hook for those policies, and an effective rejoinder to his attempts to cast himself as a regular guy who you could sit down and have a beer with.

(Not unless you were a member of his country club, you couldn't.)

Good point, @4.

The con, of course, is that most regular Americans imagine that they could one day become rich with the right breaks.

The delusions of the masses are right up there with the madness of the crowds.

Hey, could someone crack a window and expose McCain to the rain?

I hear water dissolves them ...